The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford — Volume 4 eBook

it eagerly; but do you imagine, Sir, that, idle as
I am, I am, idiot enough to think that Sir Isaac had
better have amused me for half an hour, than enlightened
mankind and all ages? I was so fair as to confess
to you that your work was above me, and did not divert
me: you was too candid to take that ill, and
must have been content with silently thinking me very
silly; and I am too candid to condemn any man for
thinking of me as I deserve. I am only sorry
when I do deserve a disadvantageous character.

Nay, Sir, you condescend, after all, to ask My opinion
of the best way of treating antiquities; and, by the
context, I suppose you mean, how to make them entertaining.
I cannot answer you in one word -, because there
are two ways, as there are two sorts of readers.
I should therefore say, to please antiquaries of
judgment, as you have treated them, with arguments
and proofs; but, if you would adapt antiquities to
the taste of those who read only to be diverted, not
to be instructed, the nostrum is very easy and short.
You must divert them in the true sense of the word
diverto; you must turn them out of the way, you must
treat them with digressions nothing or very little
to the purpose. But, easy as I call this recipe,
you, I believe, would find it more difficult to execute,
than the indefatigable industry you have employed
to penetrate chaos and extract the truth. There
have been professors who have engaged to adapt all
kinds of knowledge to the meanest capacities.
I doubt their success, at least on me: however,
you need not despair; all readers are not as dull
and superannuated as, dear Sir, yours, etc.

I will not use many words, but enough, I hope, to
convince you that I meant no irony in my last.
All I said of you and myself was very sincere- It
is my true opinion that your understanding is one
of the strongest, most manly, and clearest I ever knew;
and, as I hold my own to be of a very inferior kind
and know it to be incapable of sound, deep application,
I should have been very foolish if I had attempted
to sneer at you or your pursuits. Mine have always
been light and trifling, and tended to nothing but
my casual amusement; I will not say, without a little
vain ambition of showing some parts but never with
industry sufficient to make me apply to any thing
solid. My studies, if they could be called so,
and my productions, were alike desultory. In
my latter days I discovered the utility both of my
objects and writings: I felt how insignificant
is the reputation of an author of mediocrity; and
that, being no genius, I only added one name more
to a list of writers that had told the world nothing
but what it could as well be without.